Creation began on 06-19-21
Creation ended on 06-27-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
My Hero, Shinji Ikari: The New Normal
A/N: How many of us have hated the very thought of going to school in our youth and now have to face challenges that are similar to dealing with school in the present?
It wasn't something that they were prepared to contend with, but as the day was to begin soon, they didn't see any other option open to them. For the time being, Shado and Toya were to be watched by Recovery Girl while Shinji and Rumiko were in class. It actually felt…unnatural for both teen parents, to be separated from their children yet knowing they were close by.
"Do you think they'll be okay for the next few hours while we're here?" Rumiko asked Shinji as they were heading towards the classroom.
"I'm not sure," he responded. "This is my first time in having a kid I take with me to school. I hope they'll be okay."
"Sorry. My mat… The way I have been feeling ever since Toya came into my life, I can't just…shut it off and pretend to be okay."
Shinji could sympathize with her; his own growing concerns for Shado were not something he could pretend he didn't have. Just a few days ago, he was a nobody from a different universe where he had nothing in the way of family, and now he had a daughter that needed him and was friends…to a degree…with a girl that had a child of her own. But on the positive note, Recovery Girl would keep the parents informed of anything involving their kids.
"So, how do you two feel about today?" Midoriya asked as they stepped into the home room where everyone else was.
"Nervous," they both replied.
"Yeah, everyone probably gets that the first time."
"Everyone but you, Deku!" They heard Bakugo say as he walked past the three.
"I'm pretty sure I know his kind," went Rumiko.
"Which would be?" Midoriya questioned.
"Bullies."
-x-
"So…what do you want us to do in here?" Toya asked Recovery Girl as he and Shado sat in her office.
"Well, as I'm being tasked with watching you two while your parents are in classes picking up wherever it was they left off and resuming their studies, with your permission, I'd like to evaluate the both of you." Recovery Girl explained to them.
"Eva…what?" Shado asked, unsure if she should be concerned or not.
"I wish to examine you," the woman reiterated simply.
"I…don't think you should, ma'am," she replied, mainly because she wasn't comfortable with people she didn't know yet touching her.
"Shado's very sensitive about others touching her," Toya explained. "You must know what happened to the lady that touched her and now everyone can see her when they couldn't before."
"Hagakure. Yes, I am aware of her current state of visibility. In honesty, Ms. Shado, your Quirk, however it behaves, may not be as dangerous as some of us originally suspected."
"Just hearing that word makes me frightened of anyone I don't know touching me."
"According to the medical personnel that treated her injuries left by Gendo," Nezu had informed her, "Shado suffers from an overwhelming degree of stress due to her physical and emotional abuse by her grandfather, and this affects her ability to cope with new forms of stress. She reacts to the most minor of threats, even those that may not even be directed towards her…as though her life were in danger."
"Will she ever recover from something like this?" She had asked him.
"As we've learned over the years, young people are incredibly fragile…as well as resilient. How she recovers depends on every factor we know and can predict."
"Except we can't predict every factor," said All Might to them, "let alone control them. The world has become unpredictable and the villains more problematic."
If much of her stress stemmed from people touching her and her fear of what could happen if they did, then Recovery Girl would just have to be hands-off with evaluating Shado.
"I can do a hands-off evaluation," she told the children.
"Hands-off?" Shado asked.
"I won't touch either of you."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
-x-
"…Now, I'm sure as you're all aware," Aizawa informed the class, "we have two new students joining us from Sapporo, Hokkaido."
All eyes were on Shinji and Rumiko.
"Of course, nothing about them really stands out among the rest of you," their teacher stated.
"Except for the facts that they both have kids and that the boy beat his father down," went Bakugo in case Aizawa had forgotten to remind them of these crucial details.
"Right, so…in any case, do try to make them feel welcomed."
The day had only started, and already the two teens were thinking of how their children were doing separate from them.
I don't know who's got it worse, Shinji wondered, Shado and Toya…or Rumiko and I?
-x-
A hands-off evaluation proved to be the best course of action with Shado Ikari, as not being touched by anyone she didn't feel threatened by helped to ease her sense of dread. As Recovery Girl kept any physical contact between them to a bare minimum, she was able to see that, with the exception of her mental and emotional health, her physical recovery was progressing well. And whenever she asked about her father, the answer was simple and to the point; Shinji, despite his being from a different universe where he never had a child, had adjusted to the new position of fatherhood and did his best to do right by Shado every time he was with her, making sure she ate right and went to bed early.
"…And do you get nightmares about what happened?" She asked them. "What was being done by that man? The escape? The abuse? Anything?"
"Not since the hospital, ma'am," Toya answered. "I sometimes worry about falling into a hole or getting hit by a car, but what happened back in Sapporo was… We're not completely over it, but we're getting there…one day at a time."
"Shado?"
"I still see him," she explained to the woman. "That night, in the city, angry, hateful, wanting to hurt me all over again with his hands (she covers her shoulders with her hands as she shudders). But then Daddy shows up and he makes him go away forever. He's glowing like he's made of light and tells me that everything will be okay. He tries to hurt Daddy, but Daddy makes it so that he can never hurt me or anyone else with his hands ever again. Daddy then smiles at me as he picks me up and we fly in the air over the city. It's beautiful and peaceful."
"Okay, and your fear of your grandfather… Would it be safe to say that your fear of him can extend to anyone with a Quirk that requires the use of their hands and demonstrate a propensity, an attraction if you will, towards violence, Shado?"
That was a question that was slightly difficult for the girl to answer. It wasn't because Recovery Girl used words that she hadn't learned yet, but because she didn't want to seem completely out of line with her response. The only person that ever hurt her was Gendo, but the sight of one of the students her father would have to be around with a Quirk that required the use of their hands didn't ease her worries in the least.
"It's okay for you to answer however you feel," Recovery Girl told her. "Your opinion matters."
"I… I don't feel safe around people like that," Shado responded. "I understand that people wanting to be heroes have to do some measure of violence against others, but…people that use their hands in a way that is just awful, it reminds me of Grandfather and how he was towards me. Anyone that uses their hands to hurt others, even if it's to help others, scare me. I…I feel helpless around them when they look at me and try to get near me, and… I don't want them to touch me. I don't want anyone like that to ever touch me."
That was an answer Recovery Girl didn't fully expect to hear from the little girl. While she was recovering from her trauma and abuse on the physical level, her mental and emotional recovery was still hindered by the abuse Gendo had dealt her. Ever since her repeated exposure to his Wrath Quirk, Shado was clearly scared of other Quirks that could be used to harm people, but the difference between what made a Quirk harmful or helpful depended upon the users themselves. While there were a lot of heroes that needed their hands to use their Quirks, they weren't all violent, so she would have to make sure that Shado could tell the difference between a violent hero and a helpful hero. Also, it probably made sense to make sure that this fear of hers wasn't just targeted towards people of one gender; the girl was abused by a man, but could've easily been harmed by a woman with a similar mindset.
"Is it alright if I show you two some pictures of heroes and students in their hero costumes and you tell me which ones you think are good and which ones are bad?" She asked them.
"I'm game," Toya responded.
"Okay," Shado added, and Recovery Girl walked over to her desk and took out a bunch of cards and pictures of heroes and students in their costumes.
-x-
It was a feeling he couldn't turn off. Even though she was just down the hall in Recovery Girl's office where he could see her between classes, Shinji just had this overwhelming sense of concern for Shado's safety. It was the same with Rumiko and her concern for Toya. These parental instincts that just made focusing on their studies harder, despite not looking like anything was wrong. And then…Shinji got that other feeling that he couldn't explain, like something was wrong, but it didn't make itself known just yet. It was like danger was right next to him, except the threat hadn't materialized to become a threat.
The bell rang and the first class of the day ended. This gave the students ample time to get to their next class or go to the bathroom, and Shinji and Rumiko left to go to Recovery Girl's office to see how their children were doing for the time being.
"I think I should've gone with pants over a skirt," Rumiko told Shinji.
"Why is that?" He asked her. "I barely paid attention."
"Because Mineta kept looking at me."
"That which is most forbidden is most often desired."
"Who said that?"
"People before our time. What Mineta probably desires most of the time is what he gets informed he can't ever have."
"What about you, Shinji? Is there anything you desire that you can't have?"
"Me? I… That's a little complicated for me to answer."
"I'll make it simple, then: Is there anyone you want to be with that you feel can't or won't be with you? It can be anybody. A friend, a relative, anyone."
"You know that it's not easy for me to discuss my stunted social and personal lives. I have you, Shado and Toya…and I am actually fine with you three. What about you?"
Rumiko didn't get a chance to answer the question as they reached the nurse's office.
"How are you two doing?" Shinji asked Shado as they stepped inside.
"Everything is fine, Daddy," Shado answered him, putting down a picture of one of the students in their hero costume. "We're just…picking at heroes and students that want to be heroes."
"Heh-heh. Any favorites so far?" Rumiko wanted to know from them as she took advantage of the limited time they had until the next class.
"Uh…besides Fat Gum and All Might?" Toya responded, holding a picture of one of the students in the school in their hero costume. "I find Ms. Uraraka to be an okay heroine."
Rumiko looked at the picture of Uraraka and had to admit to herself that she was quite a looker in her hero costume. The girl looked like she could handle a situation with little concern.
"Anyone else besides her?" She asked.
"Shado and I have our opinions about Mr. Ida in his costume and Ms. Yaoyorozu in hers."
"Ida and Yaoyorozu?" Shinji questioned, and Shado solemnly showed him a picture of Ida in his costume. "He doesn't seem that bad."
"He's creepy," Shado expressed.
"Creepy?"
"He…looks like a car that has been turned into a person."
"You mean, his outfit makes you uncomfortable, don't you?"
Shado nodded her head in response; they were starting to learn that there was more to heroes than their Quirks and behaviors. And for Shado, she was bothered by certain aesthetics in the outfits of certain heroes.
"There's another way to view Ida, Shado," he told her. "His costume isn't so much a costume as it might be considered armor."
"Armor?"
"Yeah, a suit of armor. A car is made of metal that can protect the people inside it from most dangers on the road. Let's assume that Ida requires an outfit that helps him to manage his Quirk without having to hurt others by accident. What about Ms. Yaoyorozu?"
Shado then showed a picture of the rich girl…and Shinji had to wonder how a girl like this could stand to be seen in public dresses like that.
"Uh… That's, uh…" He uttered, unable to speak his mind about the girl. "Rumiko, what do you think about this?"
Rumiko looked at the picture and replied, "If it was me, I'd be dead from embarrassment rather than a fire or car accident."
"You should see the students and heroes that they marked as unpleasant in the extreme way," went Recovery Girl to the parents, holding four cards in her right hand. "I must say that Shado here is particularly sensitive about the aesthetics of a hero."
Shinji and Rumiko looked at the four pictures and identified the heroes and student that made the little girl uncomfortable.
"Is this Bakugo?" Rumiko questioned, seeing the young man's costume as extreme. "He looks like a…bad guy."
Along with Bakugo were the heroes Endeavor, Gang Orca and Ectoplasm. From Shado or any other child's point of view if they had been exposed to abuse, these four would be seen as being unpleasant, maybe even viewed as actual villains. Even Shinji and Rumiko had to admit that they looked unfriendly.
"Unpleasant is just another way of saying 'bad', right?" Shinji asked Recovery Girl.
"More or less," she responded.
Looking at Bakugo's costume, Shinji had to consider the likelihood that the boy was not someone capable of certain heroics that others could've been capable of…and aspired to being feared by his potential enemies rather than adored by the people.
"Bakugo scares you a lot, doesn't he, Shado?"
"Yes," his daughter answered. "He is very scary."
"Yeah…he is scary."
-x-
"…I hear that Unit-03 will be here in the next two days," Ritsuko told Misato in the command center of Central Dogma.
"It doesn't really matter if we don't have anyone to pilot it," Misato replied, "and nobody's really volunteering for the position. Well, except for Aida."
"Unfortunately, he's not a valid candidate."
"What do you mean by that? He came to my place yesterday, practically begging me to become a pilot. How is he not adequate?"
"Short-term perception. He can't see past the situation and act accordingly. Now, Suzuhara, on the other hand, he'd be acceptable."
"Except he refused, and he had a good reason to. The Evas are no longer safe if enough bombs are dropped on them and they can't erect an AT-Field. People lose faith in what can no longer protect them. For them, it was easier when a threat was just another person that was committing a crime for profit."
"We may have to rely on foreign pilots."
"Good luck with that, too."
Ideally, most of NERV's personnel had been starting to lose their faith in the Evas long before the death of Shinji Ikari. The reasons were mostly financial and political; it was costing immense funding that could've been put to use in the reconstruction efforts to repair and maintain the Evas, cleaning up after the Angels that left a mess or a corpse, and the complaints from the people that had to live with the aftermath of each attack and what it cost them, either physically, mentally, emotionally, financially or all of the above. Most people decided to leave after the Third Angel attacked Tokyo-3, mainly due to friends or loved ones getting harmed or killed (which wouldn't have been reported because of the manipulated media), which made the city harder to occupy with it being targeted by the Angels. There was even a rumor that the United States was pulling out of the war against the Angels because of the cost of building just two of the Evas after the Tenth Angel's attack.
"How are the First and Second Children after having time to process the aftermath?" Ritsuko asked Misato.
"Rei asked for a copy of the drawing Shinji had of the little girl he had in his locker," she responded. "Asuka hasn't said anything about him."
"What drawing of what girl?"
Misato sighed and dug into her jacket, pulling out a copy of the drawing.
Ritsuko had to admit that Shinji was very detailed in depicting the kid's face.
"Who is she?" She asked.
"That's the thing," Misato responded, "we don't know who she was to Shinji, only that he might've had a recurring dream about her. Two of his friends made a comment on how she could've been passed off as being his kid. When you think about it from a certain point of view, she kinda looks like she's related to Shinji."
"Yeah, I…I can see the resemblance."
-x-
If Shinji and Rumiko had to use one word or a sentence of opinion to describe the former hero All Might, the word would've been "overworked" while the sentence would've been, "This is a man that has clearly lost his previous greatness because of the tenacity of villains that dealt only in extremes." Still, this was the man that inspired hope to the hopeless and regardless of his current appearance, his last victory over the villain All For One still earned him great respect from those that saw him.
"I know, he's not exactly as he used to be," Midoriya told the two.
"What are you talking about?" Shinji questioned. "The guy's still considered a hero, isn't he? He defeated All For One and survived. Nobody walks away unscathed all the time."
"Yeah," Rumiko added. "If I wanted to ask for his autograph, I wouldn't mind a picture of him as he currently is."
"Really?" Ida and Uraraka asked them.
"Nobody's invincible," Shinji expressed.
One of the only things about this class that made it difficult was just trying to make use of their Quirks during the training course. Because Rumiko's wasn't well-understood and Shinji barely had a full grasp on his, they were reduced to wearing their basic gym uniforms (which they didn't mind, really, as it would be a while before they could even decide on their own hero outfits). This and because they needed to have visual demonstrations on how the costumes aided in managing the Quirks and reducing their negative drawbacks. The class was taking place in Ground Gamma, which to the teen parents, looked like an actual industrial site and not a mockup of one.
"Wow," Shinji expressed at the fact that the site was massive. "Are y'all sure this place is actually empty?"
"It's been that way since we started," Ida explained to them as he took off his helmet. "Any ideas on how to use your Quirks in a place like this?"
"I…wouldn't know how if I don't know anyone well enough to find them," Rumiko stated; her Maternal Devotion's usefulness was dependent upon her relationships with other people, and the deeper they were enabled her to find them within a five-mile range, but if she didn't know them well enough, she'd be lost to them in a legion of people, no matter where she was. "I have to know people better to be able to find them."
"What about you, Ikari?"
"Having gone through a similar situation," Shinji explained, "I'd probably be looking for victims if I couldn't find the villain, or if I found the villain, I'd apprehend them to stop their escalation."
"But…you haven't had much training with your Quirk, have you?" Asui asked him.
No training, no practice, let alone no clue as how to have his Quirk act up yet, Shinji was facing a challenge from every angle of his current predicament. When Guardian first manifested, it was to protect Shado from Gendo. The second time it acted up, it was to watch over his three companions as they slept when Mineta tried to sneak down to where they were. If it only acted up when faced with a sense of hostility, intentional or just minor, he had to find a way to get around this and control Guardian at will.
"I'm working on it," he responded. "If Shado saw you dressed like that right now, she'd probably want a picture of you, Ms. Asui."
"Really?"
"Well, yeah. You're among those I just learned she doesn't feel frightened by."
"That's good to know. How is Shado, by the way?"
"Learning how she copes with everything every time."
Asui then looked over and noticed Bakugo was further away from them and then asked Shinji and Rumiko, "She's afraid of Bakugo, isn't she?"
The teen parents sighed and nodded their heads.
"I don't blame her," went Yaoyorozu to them. "He can be very…difficult."
Difficult? Rumiko thought. More like temperamental and stubborn! And he looks like a bad guy!
"I'm hoping that this will get resolved as time goes by," Shinji stated.
So far today, Rumiko had to consider the likelihood that Uraraka, Asui, Yaoyorozu and Ashido were the ones most likely to become familiar to her Quirk if she needed to find them. Their first impressions with her had aided in conversations between them being easy. In Shinji's case, the boy had to get out of his comfort zone a bit more and develop basic relationships with others, which have so far only been with Ida, Midoriya and Uraraka. He needed to expand his new relationships with the others of Class 1-A, since he knew Koda, Tokoyami and Shoji, the three students that were the ones he initially had to be concerned about around Shado because they didn't look like other people weren't at fault if Shado was frightened by them (which he later found to be minor for the girl in the beginning, at least with Koda).
"Is that Mineta with a pair of binoculars?" Rumiko asked, and most eyes turned to see the small boy that was looking their way.
"You get used to him after a while," Yaoyorozu explained.
"Yeah…no. I'm pretty sure he was looking at you."
"He has nobody better to look at."
Because now there were twenty-two students instead of twenty, the class was split into two eleven-student groups. One group would be acting as a villainous team and the other would be the hero team sent to face them. Unfortunately, this split Shinji and Rumiko between the two, as the girl was on the villain side and he on the hero side. This scenario was to give each side a different advantage based on how their Quirks worked so far.
The hero team: Izuku Midoriya, Tenya Ida, Ochaco Uraraka, Tsuyu Asui, Rikido Sato, Mashirao Ojiro, Koji Koda, Shoto Todoroki, Kyoka Jiro, Eijiro Kirishima and Shinji Ikari.
The villain team: Katsuki Bakugo, Toru Hagakure, Minoru Mineta, Momo Yaoyorozu, Mezo Shoji, Fumikage Tokoyami, Denki Kaminari, Yuga Aoyama, Mina Ashido and Rumiko Gaidoku.
The objective: The villains had brought in a bomb capable of leveling five city blocks and the heroes had to find the bomb's location and apprehend the villains guarding it until it detonates.
"You really think separating the two will help their respective teams, All Might?" Aizawa asked the former hero.
"No time like the present to find out," All Might replied. "Plus, this will let us see what they can do with their Quirks when in a situation like this, as well as their ability to work with others."
"It's not so much their ability to work with others that has me concerned right now. It's the other students that have to work with them. Most of them seem to get that these two aren't like other people their age, but some of them have yet to see that."
"If we're talking about young Bakugo here…"
"Well, who else but him would show some resistance in opening up to the two? You put him on the same team as Gaidoku, and if I understand it right, she's been Ikari's childhood friend for years; if something happens to her, it's anyone's guess as to how Ikari will react to whoever the one at fault is."
"Still, no time like the present to find out."
-x-
Unfortunately, the only other problem with this scenario was that Recovery Girl had access to the cameras that were seeded throughout Ground Gamma, and she was letting Shado and Toya watch the class their parents were in to see how they perform.
"Would you just look at their outfits?" Toya told Shado as he watched his mother sitting down on the floor in a room in front of a large object. "Say, how come our parents are wearing the same type of outfit that looks plain?"
"They only just started school, Toya," Shado explained. "Plus, the teachers aren't entirely sure how their Quirks work enough to make costumes for them. Oh…"
"What's wrong?"
"It looks like they put…him on the same team as your mother."
Toya looked on the television screen and noticed how their parents had been separated and paired with different students…and how his mother was with Bakugo.
"He'd better not hurt her," he expressed.
"Daddy may not like that," Shado added; she noticed a while back how Rumiko was around Shinji and had to suspect there was something nice between them. "Your mother likes Daddy, doesn't she?"
"What? Of course, Mommy likes your father. They're friends. They've been that way since we were born."
Toya's naïveté was probably what kept him from seeing the obvious of what Shado had asked, but the girl didn't mind that about him. He was recovering faster than she was at the moment while they were watching how their parents got along with their classmates.
"But to put Mommy in a villain team, though," he uttered, "I don't think she makes a good villain. Do you think so, Shado?"
"Our parents are good people," she responded. "Some of their classmates are good people. Those two, however…are anything but good."
On the screen, she pointed to Mineta and Bakugo in their outfits, the former with Yaoyorozu reinforcing a door…and the latter with Rumiko, possibly safeguarding the object the girl was sitting nearby at.
To be continued…
A/N: Basically, this is how the first day of school is for Shinji in a school for heroes of the future, but even he has to split his time between that and Shado. I hope you were impressed by the development until the next chapter. Their character and Quirk development will be refined the more they open up to their classmates and their kids get to see them as more than mere students or their parents. Peace!